Cabinets- Installing European Hinges
Posted by Wayne
As I detailed in an earlier post, before painting the cabinet doors I bored 35mm holes into them for mounting european “cup” hinges with a drill press and a special drill bit. The european hinges are a real visual upgrade over standard hinges because they are hidden from sight when the doors are closed. The moving pieces of a european hinge basically fold up and go into the cup when the door is closed, and the cups are recessed into the back of the door by about 1/2 inch.
When I was boring the holes for mounting the hinges, I wasn’t particularly concerned about the vertical placement of the hinges. I just bored the holes into the doors at about the same location as the old hinges. The important part was that they were all the right distance away from the edge of the door. I bought a european hinge kit from Home Depot in the cabinet hardware section which included the 35mm drill bit and a plastic template which you could place against the edge of the door and mark the perfect location each time.
A lot of places on the internet lead you to believe that you need some sort of jig to locate and drill these holes correctly. While I probably wouldn’t try to freehand these holes with a boring bit in my hand drill considering the consequences of a mistake (a ruined door that I couldn’t replace), the kit I bought from Home Depot cost about $15 and included a template and the required 35mm boring bit. The $15 kit paired with a drill press was more than sufficient. It took me about an hour to bore all the holes in 17 doors and every one was perfect, and mounting the doors to the cabinets proved pretty easy as well.
Now that I had the cabinet doors and boxes painted, I was ready to install the hinges and hang the doors.
Installing the hinges onto the door was really a no-brainer. You push the cup into the hole, pre-drill two screw holes, and then secure it with two small screws. You just have to ensure that it is mounted parallel to the edge of the door so the hinge will open properly.
Once the hinges were secure to the door I was ready to install the mounting plates on the cabinets. I removed the mounting plates from each hinge by loosening one screw.
I wasn’t sure how tough it would be to install these plates at the right height on the cabinet boxes as each hinge on each door was at a slightly different vertical height. I was prepared for a long day’s work for mounting these doors, but as soon as I got rolling it went really fast and I was able to finish the job in only a couple of hours.
I held up the first door so my wife could judge the correct height, and when she settled on a height I marked on the cabinet frame where the hinges were. The height of all the doors after that were based on the height of the first one, and I didn’t even need to use a tape measure. This was surprisingly easy to eyeball, and the design of the european hinge allows for some up/down left/right in/out movement after it is mounted, so basically you just have to get close and you can adjust later if needed.
Once the mounting plate was separated from the hinge, it was simply a matter of holding the door next to the cabinet at the correct height and making a mark on the cabinet frame in the center of the protruding “U” of the hinges. See the image below.
Once I had a mark on the cabinet frame, I would position the mounting plate (the piece on the right in the image above) on the center of the mark, mark and predrill two screw holes, and then secure the mounting plate to the cabinet frame with two screws.
Once the mounting plate was attached to the frame, I could still move it up and down by a good 1/4 inch in each direction by loosening the two mounting screws (see image below). I did have to make small up and down adjustments to these here and there.
Once the mounting plates for a door were in place, attaching the door is simply a matter of guiding the “U” of the hinge into into place on the mounting plate and tightening the screw.
Once a door was attached, I’d close it and make sure everything looked right from the outside. I learned that european hinges are very forgiving, allowing for multiple adjustments after they’ve been installed. As I was basically eyeballing everything I usually had to make an adjustment or two after I closed the door and saw the actual positioning of the door. These were all very quick.
Attaching the doors to the cabinets was really a pretty easy job. Overall I’d imagine that using european hinges is more labor intensive than using standard hinges, and it was a little scary boring big holes into the cabinet doors, but none of it was very difficult and I’m glad we did it. After installing crown molding, painting the cabinets, and installing the european hinges, our cabinets look brand new.
Finished Cabinets
One Response to “Cabinets- Installing European Hinges”
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June 12th, 2008 at 2:26 am
Your blog really put me on the right track to choose and install door hinges. I appreciate your instructions and ideas, they are easy to understand and follow. Thanks